A glide path for the Christie re-elect?

1/29/13 11:10 AM EST

New Jersey Democrats are beginning to line up behind an opponent to Chris Christie, but the funereal tone and ambivalence surrounding the race reveals the outlook for knocking off the popular GOP governor and prospective 2016 presidential candidate in November isn’t promising.

Monday should have been Barbara Buono’s triumphant moment as the Democratic Party started to coalesce around her candidacy for governor.

A cascade of endorsements minted her as the party’s genuine standard-bearer. It was time for the feisty, 59-year-old Metuchen lawyer to bask in the aura of inevitability. Yet the pledges of loyalty and support did not dispel the ambivalence the Democratic Party has about her quest to unseat Governor Christie in November.

Party leaders are finally, grudgingly abandoning their Anybody But Barbara recruitment drive for a consensus candidate. They realized that there will be no deep-pocketed star with strong approval ratings swooping out of central casting or the State House to defeat Christie.

They won’t say it publicly, but there is fear, genuine fear, among New Jersey Democrats that this year’s gubernatorial election will produce a Republican landslide not seen since the Tom Kean era, threatening Democratic control of the legislature and key county offices …

[N]ow they’re fighting for their lives, facing not only the prospect of four more years without the governorship, but also the potential unraveling of a down-ballot empire on which the jobs and contracts that give the party its organizational and financial muscle depend. It’s a turnaround that can be attributed to a host of culprits, but one towers over the others: The New Jersey Democratic Party itself.

New Jersey is too Democratic, and Christie too brash, to write off the race yet. But, as Stile suggests, given the early fundraising disparity, hopes of significantly dinging up Christie in advance of 2016 might be contingent on the involvement of national Democratic groups.